Grounding Root Vegetable Soup

Well, it’s that time of year again in New England…  The days and nights are getting shorter and colder, the leaves are turning brilliant, beautiful colors and falling to the ground, and my body is beginning to crave homemade soups and stews.  According to Ayurvedic medicine, which is a system of traditional medicine that has been around for thousands of years, is native to India and is practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine, it is normal for our bodies to want to live in harmony with the seasons, and that means craving certain foods in the spring, summer and winter/fall.  Dr. John Douillard, who is an Ayurvedic practitioner and expert when it comes to Ayurveda, explains what foods are best for the winter season in his Winter Grocery List.  The more of the foods on this list that you can add into your daily diet during the winter season, the more you will be in sync with the season, and the more warm and grounded you will feel.  Dr. Douillard also has several winter wellness tips on his website that he uses to keep himself, his patients and six kids healthy and happy.  I encourage you to check them out.  :0)

So it happens to be cold and raining outside right now as I type this post, and my close friends — and my honey — know that when it rains and it is cold out, I make soup.  Luckily, yesterday my honey took me to a local farmer’s market to buy fresh, local, organic produce.  We naturally stocked up on root vegetables, as that is what is being harvested in our neck of the woods this time of year.  Beets, rutabagas, daikon and black radishes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, garlic, onions and oyster mushrooms are what we stocked up on, and that is exactly what I put into my Grounding Root Vegetable Soup.  These root vegetables are chock full of vitamins, minerals and health-promoting qualities.   To find out what is local and in season for your part of the world, you can visit Local Harvest, type in your zip code, and you will be enlightened by the variety of fruits and vegetables that are freshest and most delicious for you to eat at this time of year.

Now for the soup…  I believe in making a lot of soup at one time so that I have food for several days, or if I choose to, I can freeze some for future meals.  Cook once, eat at least twice, is my motto.  I am hoping you will adopt that motto, too!  The gigantic pot that I use holds several pounds of vegetables, as well as 24 cups of filtered/spring water.  If you don’t have a gigantic pot like me, you can scale down the recipe to suit your needs.  If you are scaling down the recipe, I recommend cutting up your vegetables, adding your grain and beans, then add in the water at the end.  When I am not “inventing” a recipe for my blog or my future book, I don’t usually write down recipes.  I do everything by taste, and I am also recommending that you do, too.  Add it a little bit of this or that (spices, etc.) that you like, and do so a little bit at a time.  It’s much easier to add more of something in then to be bummed out because you added too much and your delicious homemade creation isn’t so delicious anymore!  Yes, yes, yes, I know this from experience…

Ingredients:

Several pounds of fresh, local, organic root vegetables with the green tops intact, chopped

1 red or white onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

1/2 pound of oyster mushrooms, chopped

1 cup millet

1 cup adzuki beans

3-inch piece of kelp, chopped or whole

2 bay leaves

2 Tbs dried rosemary

4 fresh sage leaves

2 Tbs Celtic sea salt

2 Tbs toasted sesame oil

1 Tbs umeboshi plum vinegar

2 Tbs agar-agar flakes

24 cups filtered/spring water

***ALWAYS USE ORGANIC OR WILDRAFTED INGREDIENTS WHEN AVAILABLE***

 To Make The Soup:

1.  Chop up all of your root vegetables, the onion, the garlic, the mushrooms and put them into a large pot.  I like to keep things simple when it comes to soup.  In this soup I just sliced everything (as you can see from the pictures) and threw it in the pot.  It saves on time and tastes exactly the same as if you got all fancy with cutting your vegetables;

2.  Add the millet and adzuki beans to the pot with the veggies;

3.  Add in the 24 cups of water;

4.  Add in the kelp, bay leaves, rosemary, sage and Celtic sea salt.  If you like kelp, cut it with scissors into small pieces into the pot.  If you do not care for kelp, throw in the whole 3″ piece of kelp, so that you can take it out before you eat the soup.  Kelp adds minerals to the soup and helps to make it more nutritious;

5.  Bring to a boil, and then immediately turn it to medium low (stirring occasionally and making sure it does not boil over) for approximately an hour;

6.  Turn to low and add in the toasted sesame oil, umeboshi plum vinegar and agar-agar flakes and cook until the beans are cooked well (you do NOT want al dente beans because that equals gas, which is not fun for anyone :0));

7.  After the beans are cooked, your Grounding Root Vegetable Soup is finished.  Enjoy!

Some Helpful Tips:

Choose root vegetables that you love…  Do you like sweet vegetables?  Bitter vegetables?  Creamy vegetables?  Are you attracted to certain colored vegetables?  Do you have absolutely no clue where to begin because you’ve never eaten a beet, a turnip or some celery root in your life?   If all of this is new to you and you’re not used to eating root vegetables, consider asking the farmer(s) at the farmer’s market for a recommendation.  Let’s face it, farmers know what they grow, and they are a fantastic resource when it comes to picking delicious produce.

If you want to cook your soup in less time, soak the adzuki beans for several hours in filtered/spring water, and then use them to make the soup.

I chose Millet, which is a fabulous whole grain, to use in this soup because I’ve been eating a lot of quinoa lately and wanted to mix things up a bit.  Other fantastic options to add into soups are quinoa, amaranth and/or buckwheat.  You could even use a combination of two or more of these whole grains.  FYI, real whole grains (“whole wheat” bread, for example, is not a whole grain) are loaded with B vitamins, folic acid, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium and zinc.  Besides being nutritious, they are delicious!  :0)

As I say with all of my recipes, if you don’t like something, e.g. mushrooms, just omit them from the recipe.  If you can’t get an item that you like, e.g. oyster mushrooms, substitute it with a similar item, e.g. shitake or portabello mushrooms.  The point is to make a homemade recipe that you will love and eat.  You can follow my recipe to the T or use it as a general guideline to create a masterpiece that you can call your own.

I have put links from my Inspired Health & Happiness Market to the kelp, Celtic sea salt, toasted sesame oil, umeboshi plum vinegar and the agar-agar flakes to this recipe.  In the event that you cannot find one of these items at your local grocery store, you can always purchase them by clicking on the links provided.  All of the products listed are organic and/or wildcrafted, and they are brands that I use in my own kitchen.  ;0)

To your health and happiness!